NCAA beach volleyball championship

The NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship is an NCAA-sanctioned tournament to determine the national champions of collegiate women's beach volleyball. It is a National Collegiate Championship featuring teams from Division I, Division II and Division III, and is became the 90th NCAA championship event.

It was the first new NCAA championship to be created since the NCAA Division III Men's Volleyball Championship in 2012, and the first for women since the NCAA Bowling Championship in 2004.

USC have been the most successful program, with six national titles.

History The championship was approved by the NCAA Convention during the fall of 2015, and a committee was selected to determine the tournament's organizational structure. Before 2015, sand volleyball had been part of the NCAA Emerging Sports for Women program (which included women's ice hockey, bowling, rowing, and water polo in the past). As such, a separate championship had been contested annually, since 2012, by the American Volleyball Coaches Association. Before 2012 several championships were televised by Collegiate Nationals. As of 2015, over 50 schools (from Divisions I, II, and III) had sponsored sand volleyball, ten more than the total number of required programs.

The sport's name was changed from "sand volleyball" to the more usual "beach volleyball" in June 2015, and the committee overseeing the sport is now named the NCAA Beach Volleyball Committee.

Structure 2016–2021

The championship is held each May. From 2016 through 2021, eight teams participated, in a double-elimination style tournament with a single-elimination final, under standard beach volleyball rules. All duals consist of five matches, with each team needing to win three matches to advance.

The NCAA does not add automatic qualifiers until two championship seasons have passed; but in 2016, the top 3 teams from the east and west were given automatic bids with 2 additional teams invited at-large.

As of fall 2019, seven conferences sponsored beach volleyball, all with at least six members — the minimum number for a conference to qualify for an automatic bid to other NCAA championship tournaments. Five of these conferences were represented in the inaugural tournament; the exceptions were the Ohio Valley Conference and Southland Conference, both of which began beach volleyball sponsorship in the 2020 season. ASUN Conference (7 members) Big West Conference (7 members) Coastal Collegiate Sports Association (12 members) Ohio Valley Conference (6 members) Pac-12 Conference (9 members) Southland Conference (9 members) West Coast Conference (7 members)

2022, 2025-present From 2022 onwards, the championship tournament was expanded to 16 teams. In 2025 the number of conferences eligible for an Automatic Bid returned to 8 and the Tournament returned to 16 teams.

Atlantic Sun Conference Big West Conference Conference USA Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Ohio Valley Conference Southland Conference Sun Belt Conference West Coast Conference

Additionally, two teams from the East Region and two teams from the West Region will be given bids by the NCAA beach volleyball committee, while the final four teams will be selected at large.

20232024 Starting in 2023, the tournament switched to a standard single elimination bracket from the partial double elimination bracket system used before. The field was also expanded to 17 teams to allow for nine automatic qualifiers.

Results NCAA Beach Volleyball ChampionshipYear Site(Host)Host VenueFinal SemifinalistsWinner Score Runner-up Third Place Fourth Place2016 DetailsGulf Shores, AL(UAB)Gulf Shores Public Beach USC 3–0 Florida State UCLA Hawaii2017 Details USC (2) 3–2 Pepperdine Hawaii Florida State2018 Details UCLA 3-1 Florida State Hawaii USC2019 Details UCLA (2) 3-0 USC LSU Hawaii2020Canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic2021 DetailsGulf Shores, AL(UAB)Gulf Shores Public Beach USC (3) 3–1 UCLA Loyola Marymount LSU2022 Details USC (4) 3–1 Florida State UCLA Loyola Marymount2023 Details USC (5) 3–2UCLAFlorida State/TCU2024 DetailsUSC (6)3–0UCLACal Poly/LSU2025 DetailsTCU3–2Loyola MarymountCal Poly/UCLA2026 DetailsUCLA (3)3–0StanfordFlorida State/Texas2027 Details2028 Details2029 Details2030 Details2031 Details

Summary Team Titles Team #Years 6 2016, 2017, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 3 2018, 2019, 2026 1 2025

Result by school and by year

Twenty-eight teams have appeared in the NCAA Tournament in at least one year starting with 2016. The results for all years are shown below. The code in each cell represents the furthest the team made it in the respective tournament. Each team's seed in the tournament is shown in superscript to the right of the team's result. National Champion National Runner-up

2016 to 2022: double elimination format 3rd place 4th place Tied for 5th place Tied for 7th place Round of 16 (2022 only)

2023 to present: single elimination format Semifinals Quarterfinals Round of 16 Play-in Round (2023 & 2024 only)

School Conference # T8 T4 T2 CH MPSF 10 10 8 7 6 MPSF 10 10 9 6 3 Big 12 6 4 2 1 1 Big 12 10 10 6 3 - West Coast 6 6 3 1 - MPSF 6 5 1 1 - West Coast 4 4 1 1 - Big West 7 4 4 - - MPSF 8 7 3 - - Big West 6 5 2 - - MPSF 2 2 1 - - MPSF 5 3 - - - Sun Belt 6 2 - - - ASUN 5 2 - - - Big 12 2 2 - - - Big West 5 1 - - - CUSA 3 1 - - - CUSA 2 1 - - - Big 12 1 1 - - - Southland 4 - - - - MPSF 3 - - - - Ohio Valley 3 - - - - Ohio Valley 2 - - - - ASUN 2 - - - - Big 12 1 - - - - MPSF 1 - - - - Big 12 1 - - - - CUSA 1 - - - -

Broadcasting Turner Sports held broadcast rights to the tournament for the first two years (2016 and 2017), with early-round coverage airing on TruTV, and the championship game broadcast on TBS. In December 2017, ESPN signed a multiyear agreement to broadcast the NCAA Women's Beach Volleyball Championship through 2022.

NCAA beach volleyball championship

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